


Skin From a Snake, Blood From a Stone

by MooseFeels



Category: Supernatural
Genre: (kind of), Changelings, Fae & Fairies, Human Castiel, Kidnapping
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-09
Updated: 2016-05-28
Packaged: 2018-04-19 21:51:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 6,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4762340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MooseFeels/pseuds/MooseFeels
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam doesn't really remember what came before.<br/>Dean's little brother disappeared when Dean was eight, and the event left a huge hole in his life. When a stranger shows up, fifteen years later, in the house where Dean grew up with his little brother's name and his little brother's eyes, Dean doesn't know if he's more scared by the idea of this man lying, or this man telling the truth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

It is a cold, clear morning, and then the fog rolls in and it isn't any more.

Sam remembers being in the garden, the soil around his hands, the feel of the plants biting into his palms as he ripped them from the dirt. He remembers the feeling of dew around his ankles, the way the wooden edge of the raised bed bit into his ribs as he leaned over it.

He remembers all of these things clearly, but he doesn't remember how the fog _got_ there.

He turned around, though, and then the fog was there, and then-

This is what Sam remembers, from before he was Here.

He's not even sure how long he's been here for now, but he knows it's a long time. He knows he's taller than he used to be, and his hair is longer, too. It's not as long as it could be; this he knows because the woman with long brown hair cuts it for him.

He can't really remember her name, but he can remember that she makes him feel safe, and strong and Grown Up.

It's been a long time, but Sam's not sure how long.

He doesn't know any of their names. He doesn't know the name of the woman with the long brown hair and he doesn't know the name of the man with yellow eyes- him, he does not like. He makes his head hurt, makes him feel sick and jittery all over. Sam doesn't tell him that, though, it would be rude.

There's also the cold man.

Sam doesn't remember what he looks like, but he does remember that he's _cold_. So cold it burns; so cold it hurts.

Sam doesn't think about him right now though; he puts the thought away, somewhere else, and he snaps his fingers a few times. Blue sparks flitter off from their tips, bright and quick and then _gone_. It's a little trick, one with a  fancy name, one that the man with yellow eyes taught Sam.

Cantrip.

It's a cantrip. It's easy and not important and it doesn't take any energy at all. Sam just snaps his fingers and they appear. He can even make the sparks different colors, if he wants- he learned how to do that. He used to not be able to. A long time ago (or maybe no time at all?), they would only turn green, a weird color like grass or that color water turns when light hits it a certain way.

The color green is important, but Sam doesn't really understand why.

Sometimes, it's Summer all day, and sometimes it's Winter. Today, though, it is spring.

Sam wakes up under the hawthorn tree and he can see that it is wearing the small white blooms of springtime.

He snaps his fingers a few more times, and a few of the blossoms turn deep pink, not really the color of cherry trees. That color that magic is.

He sits up, and he notices that around him, the grass is high and deeply colored. He must have been asleep a long time; when he fell asleep, it was still winter and the grass was dead and hard.

Sam wonders, and then a breeze blows through and unsettles the blossoms from the tree.

He looks at the clouds- important things, the clouds, although not as important as the stars.

The woman with long brown hair steps from somewhere, and she says, "Sam, have you been sleeping all this time?" Her voice is high and sweet. A little disapproving, but playful. She is not angry, not really.

Sam feels himself blush.

She shakes her head, again playing at that kind of disappointment- upset but not _really_ upset.

"Oh, Sam, whatever will we _do_ with you?" She exclaims, laughing. She runs forward and dives into the grass, beside Sam. The hawthorn tree has grown such that it cradles him as he lays there; holds close to his body and keeps him comfortable. Sam has known this tree for a long time, as long as he has known the woman with long brown hair.

She turns, in the grass, and looks at him. Her skin is tanned evenly, much like Sam's is. She has clever fingers, and she plucks a few lines of grass with them and braids them together into a long, thin cord.

She ties it around Sam's wrist, and as she does, it turns into a length of silver. She smiles, and looks at him, her bright eyes mischievous.

She is always mischief.

"Come on, Sam, I have something to show you!" She exclaims, standing up suddenly. The white collar of her dress shifts, revealing a shoulder. She tugs him upward, and then running, through the grass, somewhere else.

Sam follows her, because Sam follows her _everywhere_. Sometimes they go to other trees and climb up their branches and she shows him how to make whole banners of sparks, that hang like ribbons, just right there, or she braids his hair beside a lake where the flowers sing sad, strange songs or sometimes-

It's a river she brings him to, the water clear and blue and strange and deep. Sam knows, just from looking at it, that if he put his hand inside of it, it would be cold. It would be very, very cold, cold enough that it would make his skin feel tight and strange.

He looks at it for a long, long time, before he realizes that she's still tugging on his hand, his arm.

"Sam," she says, "Sam, come on, you'll adore this-"  
"There's something down there," Sam says, softly, "Something- I can't- Please-"  
"No, Sam, please," she says, pleading suddenly. She does this sometimes, though, it's another one of her games.

But there's something in the water, something _under_ there and Sam can't quite see it, can't quite figure it out what it's supposed to be and he steps, down, onto the bank and suddenly-

Suddenly, he slips _in_.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

Dean wakes up suddenly, his breath in his throat, like he always does.

He doesn't wake up easily or softly- the sensation is always sudden, a kind of jerking, like the feeling of falling before being hitting the ground.

The arm wrapped around his waist tightens a little though, and in bed beside him, Castiel groans a little bit.

"Dean," he says, breathlessly, less said and more _sighed_. Not an exhaustion with _Dean_ , though, just exhaustion. "Dean, I'm here."

This is one of the reasons why Dean loves Castiel. One of lots.

Dean realizes, suddenly, that he's gripping Castiel's arm, probably more tight than is comfortable. Dean feels his fingers unclench and pop as he stops gripping him.

"Sorry," he says, his voice a little rough. "Sorry, sorry, I-"

"Shhh," Castiel soothes. "Go back to sleep."

Dean looks over at his clock, and seconds later it begins to sound.

Dean feels the arm around him tighten a little.

"Noooo," Castiel moans. "Baby, please, just a little _longer_."

"Not all of us are big shot artists around here," Dean says, smiling a bit. "Some of us gotta _work_ for a living."

Castiel opens a single blue eye from under the blankets to glare at Dean sharply.

Dean grins at him.

"I'll start the coffee before I get in the shower, okay?" He says.

Castiel moans again.

Dean steps quickly down the stairs to the kitchen and flicks the coffee pot on.

He steps into the downstairs bathroom, stripping out of his boxers and t-shirts. The water heats a little more quickly downstairs, which is something Dean enjoys about this bathroom rather than the upstairs bathroom. The shower is a little smaller, sure, but he doesn't have to go back up the stairs, and his clothes being there when he wakes up in the morning, right on the counter where he left them, is one of those thing that helps.

Besides, the downstairs bathroom is the one he used when he was a kid, as the upstairs bathroom is part of the master bedroom.

It's weird, how the house feels so much smaller than it did when he grew up here.

He finishes showering quickly- he shaves at night, after his shift- and steps out and puts on a set of fresh clothes for the day.

He pours two cups of coffee and heads back upstairs, where Castiel has managed to actually sit up in bed. Apparently it's an exceptional morning for his husband.

Dean careful places the coffee in his hands.

"You good?" He asks.

Castiel looks up at him with his tired, blue eyes. He looks nothing short of _utterly_ unamused.

"Good," Dean says. "I need to head in early- I didn't get all my draft in yesterday and-"  
Castiel groans, in the back of his throat.

"Baby, I know but-"  
"Will I see you at dinner?" He asks.

Dean smiles at him. "Do you mean, 'are you cooking tonight?'"

Castiel glares at him.

"I'll know by noon," he says. I'll send you a message, I swear. "

"You'll _call_ ," Castiel corrects.

"I'll call," Dean swears.

Castiel looks up, over the edge of his mug at him, and he says, "I love you."

"I know," Dean answers.

"I'll be here," Castiel continues.

"I know," Dean answers.

And Dean slides into a pair of shoes and grabs his keys and heads out the door.

It's not a far drive to the paper from here, maybe forty five minutes of highway driving and then ten minutes on surface streets. He doesn't even have to be in the office until ten, technically, but he likes to come in early anyway and Charlie's going to be on his ass any way about the draft. He was lucky to find the job, anyway, after his mom got sick and they had to move back out here, to Kansas. When she died, Dean inherited the house and he couldn't quite bear the thought to get rid of it and it didn't make sense to have two places to live so-

Dean doesn't pretend that he doesn't miss the West Coast sometimes, but there's something about driving, driving in a big, flat space, it feels so _right_. It feels so _real_.

Dean likes things that feel real.

If he comes in early, finishes the draft, and talks to Charlie about it early in the day, he'll probably be able to be home by six or so. It's been weeks since he cooked dinner, and he knows Cas is getting as sick of bad Chinese food as he is. Probably more so- Cas grew up in New York and went to college in the Bay Area, hell, on their first date, they went to Dim Sum and he ordered in _Cantonese_.

Dean's still not sure when or why his husband learned Cantonese.

He turns the music up in his car a little more. The car is an old muscle car- a late sixties Impala that sat for years in the garage, under a tarp, waiting for repair. He repaired it faithfully, too- no upgrades to the stereo or anything. It means he can still play his Dad's old tapes in the tape player.

Dean looks down at his phone in the cupholder.

As if on cue, it buzzes with a message.

  
_I'm here_ , it reads.

Dean fixes his eyes back on the road.


	3. Chapter 3

When Sam wakes up, he doesn't know where he is.

That's not what's different though, not really. Sam's used to not knowing where he is or what's happening; usually time and place and things just flow around him, over him.

This though, this is _different_.

There's something about the color and the air, it's just...it's strange. It's _wrong_. It doesn't look like this, where the hawthorn tree grows or by the brook or even that strange forest, full of thorns and leaves that seem to bleed off of the trees.

Sam looks around himself, feeling the water on his skin dry, chilly. He manages to bite his lip and stand up in the muck of the riverbank. He looks down, into the water, and it suddenly seems so much less _deep_ , much shallower and less intensely bright and dark. Sam frowns at it for a moment before he steps out, onto the ground, and feels something bite into the sole of his foot.

He frowns at the sensation, and bends to see his foot.

Something glitters there, something cold and strange.

Sam snaps his fingers a few time, stretches that bit of himself, and the glittering thing pushes itself from his foot and into his hand.

Sam looks at it for a long time.

He can find no name for it in his mind. It is not a kind of stone he has encountered before. It is strange, so hard and so bright on the light but completely clear all the way through.

Sam frowns at it.

"Hey!" He hears someone call.

He looks up, from where he's examining this thing, around, looking for the source.

"Hey, are you well?" He hears the same voice call again. He looks down the river a ways, where a man is standing in the water wearing strange clothes. Black shoes that come up to his knees and a blue shirt with a strange cut.

"Do you know the woman with brown hair?" Sam asks. "Or the Cold man or the man with yellow eyes?"

The man down the river seems to frown for a second.

"You shouldn't be barefoot here- there's glass," the man in strange black shoes says.

Sam looks down, into his hand, at this glittering thing, and suddenly it is _named_.

He looks at the man down the river, further along in its flow.

Sam _marvels_ at his power.

No subtle cantrip this, to _name_ things. To give them shape and power. This is real magic.

This is a magic place Sam has found, and he wonders suddenly if the woman with brown hair or the cold man or the man with yellow eyes know it is here.

The man down the river steps out, onto the back and walks toward Sam.

"Do you have a name?" He asks. "Are you okay?" His voice is deep and gravely. His hair is dark, but it is his eyes that are perhaps the most striking. They are deep blue, like the water, and deeply _tired_ but also kind, all the way through. There is nothing _cold_ to him, and Sam feels the warmth of him like sunlight.

"My name is Castiel," he says, and Sam reels at this.

He, too, is named. He has never, in his time, met another who was named as he was.

Sam feels a burden lift from himself.

"I'm Sam," he says, his voice oversoft in his own ears. "Do you know the woman with long brown hair or the man with cold man or the man with yellow eyes?"

Castiel- Sam _relishes_ the name, along with that other name he has learned today ( _glass_ , the shape of the name in his mouth  like the smoothness of the material in his hand)- frowns a little.

"Sorry," Castiel says, "could you say that again? Your name is-"

"Sam," he says. "My name is Sam. Do you know where the hawthorn tree or the brook is or the forest of thorns or the lake is? Or the mountains, the ones where the trees with purple flowers grow?"

Castiel, the named man, shakes his head slowly. "Do you think you could come with me?" He asks. "You look cold and I need to- I need to ask someone something."  
Sam looks at Castiel's eyes. They are bright and blue and kind, still, all the way through. There is no trick here, no mischief or agony waiting to hurt him. There is just a kindness.

Sam looks down at his feet, in the cold water of the river, and he looks at the smooth, cold piece of glass in his hand.

"Okay," Sam answers.

And he takes Castiel's hand as he steps from the mud of the river, and into this strange new world.


	4. Chapter 4

Castiel remembers meeting Dean vividly, as clearly as he remembers coming up from air the first time he swam in the ocean.

He had jumped in- or rather, he was pushed in, by his older brother- and he had sunk and sunk and sunk and sunk, frozen by how cold it was. Terrifying. And then he knew, with a frozen kind of certainty, that if he didn't fight for it himself, he would keep sinking, and he would drown.

So he fought.

Castiel remembers that sensation like he remembers meeting his husband.

He was drunk. He was drunk for so much of his twenties, drunk or otherwise irrevocably fucked up. He was twenty three and in the bar, playing pool against someone he knew, half for entertainment and half in a semi-serious bargain for coke. The jukebox was too loud and the lights were low and the air was dark and asthmatic with cigarette smoke. It was like a lot of nights.

 And Dean, Dean he remembers as a breath. Stepping into the bar and asking for a double of whiskey and just sitting there, at the bar. Another random guy at another random college bar in some bullshit town.

Castiel remembers seeing him and wanting him, almost instantaneously

Castiel remembers him like breath.

Castiel remembers meeting him weeks later at someone else's house party. He remembers their first stumbling steps toward a date; Dean being patently unsure of his own attraction (Kansas left such a footprint in him, the way any kind of boot leaves an impression in the soft thing underneath it). He remembers the first time they kissed. He remembers the first time they had sex. He remembers the first time Dean smiled at him, genuinely.

And Castiel remembers Dean telling him about his brother.

"I was seven," he said, his voice quiet, in the living room. "Dad had died recently. I remember his funeral just…completely. And then…Sam was in the backyard, he was playing. Mom had a garden, in raised beds. She had put them in with Bobby and Dad, while things were still good. And Sam was there, and he just…he just wasn't. He just, was gone."

Which is why Castiel does shit like text him every few hours, to tell him he's still here. Because Sam, Sam was here, and then he was gone. And it's why Castiel holds him when Dean wakes up in the morning, terrified and breathless. It's why Castiel doesn't tease Dean about shit like the random text messages or emails or phone calls.

_I saw a bird and thought of you- you okay?_

_Hey babe- what's up?_

_Hey, are you going to be late to dinner?_

So after living with this, with this reality, for nearly four years now, Castiel can't believe that this is Dean's brother, who was kidnapped or something.

But the thing is-

He's tall. He's taller than Dean is, but he's tall enough that the relation makes sense. And he has those strange eyes that Dean has; so bright and so clear, but the color is slightly different. And he looks kind of like those pictures of Dean's father, the few that Castiel has seen while going through the house.

And he has the right name.

It's the right place and the right name and Castiel isn't one to believe in coincidences because he is one to believe in the kind of strange, uncontrolled wild energy of things that he cannot explain.

 But also, he's a man wearing strange clothes barefoot in a creek where broken glass washes up from upstream at the local park where the teenagers like to go and drink. Castiel likes the spot not only because it's less that a mile's walk from the house but because he can just walk the bank and sift the muck for the glass. He likes to use it for his mosaic work, leaving the edges un-sanded and rough.

Castiel brings him inside, into the house. He hasn't said anything since Castiel guided him up from the creek and inside.

Now he sits, placidly, at the kitchen table.

Castiel grabs the first aid kit from the bathroom and sits down, opposite of him.

He has long brown hair, brushing down toward his shoulders.

When Castiel takes his hand, to see the spot where the glass bit him, his fingers and are long and slender. His hands are broad, though, ad there is a strength written there. The man is long and tall but also broad and powerful. There's muscle there.

Castiel pulls his hand slightly, spreading it.

"Well," he says, "there doesn't seem to be anything in it. That's good. We don't have to worry about infection and it should heal clean."  
"Oh," the man says, opposite of him, "oh, healing is an old trick. I can do that."

Castiel looks at him. "I'm sorry?" he says.

"I know how to do this," he answers. "I know this trick, you don't have to show me. I'm good at it, too, I have lots of practice."

He takes his opposite hand and he performs a gesture, flipping his hand up and down a few times, snapping. He hums at a weird, specific pitch, and then he snaps one last time.

And then Castiel sees the injury slowly but almost instantly heal.

He looks up at him.

"Where did you say you were from?" He asks.

 


	5. Chapter 5

Deans been at work for a couple of hours now. He's finished his edits and he's working on the bones of a story that'll run next week on upcoming local elections- it's nothing he'll win an award for; hell, he'd be lucky if the people who lived here actually read the paper, much less anyone else. He's working on getting a cert to work for the school libraries, though. More reliable hours, more community engagement, more time in the evenings to spend with Cas. It was different in the city for both of them. The salary was actually worth what he put into it and there was an art scene for Castiel to engage in. Here though, he mostly spends his time in his studio or out in the woods near the house. They're both lonely, but it weighs a little heavier on his husband than it does on Dean.

Dean's actually just about to call Castiel and tell him he'll be home by five for dinner when his phone rings; Castiel himself calling.

"Hey, beautiful-"

"You need to come home," Castiel says, interrupting him.

Dean frowns, and then realizes that his husband can't see that. "What's wrong?" He asks.

There's a pause and then a heavy sigh. "I- it's- I can't explain it but I was in the woods, behind the house and I found someone back there and-"

"Okay," Dean says. "Slow down, baby, it's okay, I'll be there soon, okay? I'm coming."

There's another sigh at the other end of the line.

"It's serious," he says. "I wouldn't have called you if it weren't. You know that right?"

"I know," Dean reassures.

He hangs up and stands up, pulling on his coat and grabbing his keys.

"Whoah there," Charlie says, seeing him round a corner out of his small office. "Where you going there, partner?"

"Family emergency," Dean says. "Cas called and he sounds freaked out."

Charlie's eyebrows climb toward her hairline. "Oh," she says. "Shit, is he feeling okay or-"  
"I don't know," he answers. "He's not in the hospital this time, though, which is good. I'll let you know as soon as I know what's going on, okay? My phone's on, too."

"Yeah," she answers. "I trust you man. Take care of your angel."

The last time Dean got a call like this (from Castiel himself), it was because glassblowing had gone wrong and-

And the time before that, the ventilation in the studio hadn't been right and the neighbors had found him passed out and-

And the time before that-

And the time before that-

Cas gets hurt a lot, and Dean gets calls a lot, and Charlie is thankfully pretty understanding. Cas doesn't yet have a friend who can help take care of him, make sure the fans are running and the glass isn't too hot and-

Castiel's not good at not hurting himself yet.

Dean lets his foot stay heavy on the gas until he gets home, a full twenty minutes faster than usual.

He opens the door and steps in and says, "Cas? Baby, you home? What's wrong, do I need to get gauze or ice or-"

He steps into the kitchen, and his husband is there looking fully upright; healthy and hale.

"Baby," he says, "what's wrong?"

"I was by the creek and I met someone and Dean-"

Dean turns around, and standing in the doorway between the kitchen and the dining room is a tall, muscular man. He has long, brown hair, cut shaggy at just his shoulders. He has strangely colored eyes, a shade of green between blue and gold that's unsettling; kind of unreal.

Dean looks from the stranger to his husband and then back to the stranger.

"Can I help you?" He says, his voice firm.

The stranger looks a little startled and deeply unsure. He's not wearing shoes, and his feet peer out of the bottom of a worn pair of jeans with a hole in the knee. He wears a purple shirt with a long, weird dog on it. Dean thinks he might be wearing some kind of necklace; something glitters just under the collar of his shirt.

"The woman with long brown hair was taking me to the stream to show me something- it was spring and we walked from the hawthorn tree," the man says. "I fell in but I woke up here and Castiel taught me the name of glass and he brought me inside to show me how to heal, but I already knew so I did and then he became very scared so I tried to show him more of my other tricks but now you're here."

"Do you have a name, bud?" Dean asks.

The stranger looks slightly taken aback. "I am not a bud," he says. "I'm a squire in the service of the nameless houses in the far lands East of the Sun and West of the Moon on the other side of the wide river and beyond the lands we know. My name is Sam."  
Dean looks at him for a long time.

"Sam?" He asks.

The stranger nods. "Please," he says. "I didn't mean you or your houses harm." He bows his head, deferentially. "I travelled here accidentally and I don't know where I need to go next or how to find the lands I came from."

"Is this some kind of joke?" Dean asks, turning to Castiel.

Castiel shakes his head. "I found him by the creek, out behind the house. He doesn't have a wallet or-"

The stranger starts snapping, suddenly, nervously. He looks distantly, into nowhere.

Every time he snaps his fingers, green sparks light up on the air. There's a smell like freshly mown grass.

He keeps snapping and the sparks turn red and then purple and then back to green.

"What the fuck is this?" Dean demands. "Who the fuck are you- Cas- what is this-"  
"Dean, please-"  
The stranger seems to faze back into the moment, he stops snapping.

He looks at Dean, and suddenly his eyes become very soft and very round and very scared.

"D-Dean?" He says, his voice very lost.

And suddenly- suddenly Dean just doesn't know.

Is this his little brother?

 


	6. Chapter 6

Dean sees the stranger wobble a little- that’s really the only word for it. He becomes unsteady on his long legs and falls backward a little. His hands shoot upward and toward his eyes, pressing into his face.

“Hurts,” he whimpers. “Please- please stop- please- it hurts- it hurts!”

Behind him, a picture on the wall begins to shake before the glass in it cracks with a heavy sharp, sound.

Dean catches him just barely, easing him onto the floor.

“Whoah,” Dean says, “whoah man, when was the last time you ate something? Are you sick- what the fuck is going on?”

“Dean, I just have a feeling okay and I needed you to-”

“How do I know your name?” the man moans out. “Who are you? I know the princes and knights of all the lands but I know your name- they never gave me their names. I had my name and I had yours and it was all- it was all-”

“What’s your name?” Dean says, because it’s a start.

“Sam!” He exclaims. “I told you- Sam, squire in the service of the nameless houses in the far lands East of the Sun and West of the Moon on the other side of the wide river beyond the lands we know! I have been a squire for many nights and many days and before that I was a foundling ward.”

He looks up and peers from between his fingers.

His eyes are a strange color- between blue and brown and green and gold. And they are wide and scared.

And familiar.

Dean remembers every moment of his little brother, just three when he disappeared. Not kidnapped, not murdered, not killed, not died. Disappeared. The only word his mother would use until the day she died and the only word Dean would use. No funeral. No touching his room.

Disappeared, but he would come back. Disappeared.

Dean remembers his little brother’s voice. He remembers his hands, so small and sticky. He remembers his laughter. He remembers the way he sang little songs, the way he was so smart.

Dean remembers his brother.

And this is so familiar, this fear. This agonizing fear.

“Sam?” Dean asks, because he’s scared too.

“Who are you?” He asks. “Where am I? Where is the woman with long brown hair?”

“My name is Dean,” he says. “You’re in my house, in Lawrence, Kansas. I don’t know who that is, but they guy who found you is my husband, Castiel. And I think you need to come sit down on the couch, okay?”

“How do I know your name?” He answers. “How do I know you?”

Castiel comes over and helps Sam up from the floor, and Dean goes to the bathroom to throw up.

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

Sam has been in many castles before, their walls tall and cold, of deep, grey stone. He’s been in feasting halls, too, especially as the seasons glimmer and turn and the Princes who hold sway of in-between places come into knowledge and ownership. But he’s never been in a place like this one before, with big eyes that open out into the world outside, the walls of neither wood nor stone. But there’s something very familiar to it, something he knows. It’s the same feeling he gets when he looks at the man who has dominion over this place, the man whose name Sam knows.

He knows it, but he cannot bring himself to say it.

Everything spins and keeps spinning, and Sam can’t get it to stop or slow down. He tries some of those things the woman with long brown hair taught him, some of those things that make him feel like he has roots, like he is of somewhere. He tries to stretch that sensation out from the roots of himself and into the ground, to find purchase in the soil, but his body resists the exercise and can’t make it quite work.

He snaps his fingers a few times and feels the sudden heat of the sparks flying from them.

That feels real. That feels familiar but like something he knows.

Sam roots himself in that feeling instead of this place, until he feels his head stop spinning and his heartbeat slow down.

When he can feel his heart become steady and that feeling of nausea escape from himself, he opens his eyes all the way and looks up, at the blue-eyed man in front of him.

"Do you have anything in your pockets?" He asks. "Any kind of wallet or ID or picture?"

Sam frowns, and he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a-

"Oh," Castiel, the man with blue eyes, says. "That's- oh."  
Sam hands the object to him, and he traces his fingers over its shape for several long moments.

"You know what this is?" Castiel says, questioning.

Sam shakes his head. "It's always been there, though," he answers. "It always felt so heavy."

"Can you still carry it?" Castiel asks.

Sam nods. "Of course,"  he answers. "It's part of me."

* * *

 

The toy soldier feels weighty and warm in his hand, and Castiel feels from it a strangeness. It's the kind of feeling right before a lightning storm, before the air becomes utterly electric and something is let loose and free. It feels like a waiting.

Sam looks at it, like he has never seen it before or, like he has not much considered it. Like someone might look at a lock of hair that has been trimmed away. He tucks it carefully back in his pocket and he looks back at Castiel, still with that lost expression.

It's pained.

"What do I do now?" He asks. "Something is very wrong and I do not have the power to help it on my own."  
Castiel looks at him, and he looks very young and very small again.

"I think you should eat something," Castiel answers. 


	8. Chapter 8

The coffee stings as he throws it up, and the rice he had for lunch has an uncomfortable texture. He flushes when he thinks he’s done, to get the smell out of the room, and he leans against the bathroom wall and looks up.

This isn’t real. 

“This isn’t real,” he says, aloud, to himself and to the world at large. “This isn’t real.”

He lets his shoulders hang and his body go a little loose. He tries to relax through this, the panic.

After Mom died, and they took the house, they repainted a lot of the rooms. They rearranged the furniture, they put up new pictures on the walls-- after Mom died, they did a lot of these things, but up the stairs and down the hall, farther away from the bathroom, that room, that room they left untouched. 

Dean hasn’t even been in there in  _ years _ .

He stands up, unsteadily, from the bathroom floor and moves slowly, as quietly as he dares, from the bathroom to the room down the hall.

The door is a different color from the rest of the doors in the house. The soft, off white color Mom had picked all that time ago, aged by sun and time. He reaches out, slowly. There’s a distant fear that the metal of the doorknob will burn him. 

He opens the door.

The furniture is draped with sheets. Twin bed opposite the window, with drawn curtains. 

The curtains have Superman on them, flying through space. 

Superman was Sammy’s favorite.

“This isn’t real,” he says again. 

It was a foggy morning, in the early summer, when his brother left. And now--

Dean stands in the room for a long, distressing moment, and then he steps out and closes the door.

* * *

 

Castiel guides Sam-- who is taller than anyone he has met before-- carefully to a chair in the kitchen and helps him sit down. 

“Is there anything you’re allergic to?” He asks. “Or anything you just don’t like?”

Sam frowns and looks at him. “What is this name? Allergic?”

Castiel bites his lip, trying to find the right words. “It’s like a poison, but one that only affects you. So, if I eat kiwi, I get very sick, but most people aren’t bothered by it.”

“Oh,” Sam answers. “I can’t eat the foxglove flowers,” he says.

Castiel feels a kind of concern and also amusement bubble up inside him. “What about dairy? Can you have dairy?”

“Oh yes!” Sam exclaims. “There were goats that lived on the hillside between Dawn and Dusk that had the sweetest milk, and there the woman with brown hair would help me make cheese of it.”   
“Okay,” Castiel says. “Okay. Does mac n’ cheese sound good?”

Sam smiles, and shrugs the barest bit. 

“You’ll like it,” Castiel answers, smiling reflexively. “Everyone likes it.”

He turns around and puts a pot of water on the stove to boil. Pulls a box out of the pantry and sits down across from Sam. 

“You said...you said you fell?” he asks.

Sam nods. “The woman with brown hair and I, we were journeying-- it was Spring, and the hawthorn was white with the season. That was how I knew.  And we were passing through the river, when I saw something, and so I fell in.”

“What did you see?” Castiel asks.

“I don’t know,” he answers. “But it was gold.” He holds the toy soldier in his hand, turns it around between his fingers. “It looked important. I needed to see it. And then I was here. And you found me.”

Dean comes down the stairs. His eyes look read. He wipes his nose on his shirtsleeve. “Uh,” he says, “so-- so no matter who you are, you need somewhere to stay. At least tonight. We can put you up on the couch and then see what happens there.”

Sam looks confused for a moment, before Castiel says, “We’d like you to stay here, while we figure out what’s happening.”

Sam’s eyes go wide, and he rises to his feet gracefully. He bows deeply and says, “I am honored to be offered the hospitality of your hall and I offer in return the colors of my left eye, to be rendered to you when such a time would suit you.”

“I-thanks,” Dean says, and he looks so uncomfortable and nervous and scared. “Thanks. Are you hungry?”

“I’ve got some water on to boil,” Castiel interrupts. 

“Oh,” Dean says. He looks away from the table, nervously. Frowns. “Cool,” he says. “Good. Yeah.”

Dean looks over, at Sam, and he says, “Are you cold? Your clothes are still wet.”

Sam looks down at himself, as if noticing this for the first time, and he says, “Oh.”

“Dean has some shirts and pants that are old; let me grab some for you,” Castiel says. Before Dean can protest, he leaves the room quickly, heading up the stairs to their room. 

He’s pretty sure none of the pants will go lower than his ankles, but he should be able to find a shirt, no problem. He grabs a couple of soft pieces, and he leaves the room and pauses, at the top of the stairs.

“You’ll get your clothes back,” Dean says. Castiel hears him. 

“They’re the only ones I have,” Sam answers. “There’s the crowns and the rings but those are for occasions, and they’re all back in the far lands.”

“You never...you never call it home,” Dean says. 

“It’s no one’s home,” Sam replies. “That is-- that--” Sam pauses, and Castiel hears, distantly, the incredible frustration bounded by the tone and shape of his voice. “There is no birth there. It has no nativity.”

Castiel finds himself frowning, reflexively. 

There’s a sound of Dean shaking the pan on the electric cooktop; the rattling of it. “So-- so where is...where is home?” He asks.

Castiel feels his heart go completely, vividly tight in his chest at the asking. 

There’s a long, long pause. Stretches for a long time, like a rope being strenuously wound up. 

“Smells like...like fire. Like fire’s ghost. Something burning. Big noise, like something  _ huge _ breathing. A predator. The prey.” 

This, Sam says into the kitchen. 

Castiel lets his feet tumble quickly down the stairs seconds after. “Here,” he says. “Let me show you to the bathroom, so you can get changed.”

Dean stands in front of the stove, silent.


End file.
